My Life as a Temporary Tourist

My newphews Damien (7) and Sebastian (13) are visiting from Madison, WI with their mother; they’ll be here a week, and today we went to the world-famous Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. I am generally not keen on zoos and seeing wild creatures locked up, especially when the humans watching them aren’t really doing much to preserve wildlife habitat.

But, when guests come to town you do what you have to do.

Here is Damien by the Bighorn sheep enclosure, just before he put his hand out to cover my camera lens in protest; I should mention that he doesn’t like baseball and doesn’t know anything about the cap he’s wearing:

Here’s Damien and Sebastian taking turns being a tortoise:

One popular event at the Desert Museum is their daily Raptor Free Flight demos, where raptors are allowed out with their trainers to demonstrate their flight and behaviors in their native habitat. It’s very cool, and in the afternoon the Harris hawk family comes out to wow the hundreds of people who gather to watch; here’s one of the hawks as it perched directly over my head, they come quite close to the crowd and are very beautiful:

Tomorrow we’re off to a train trip to the Grand Canyon; you’ll see those photos real soon!